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For immediate release: May 7, 2007 Mothers aren’t a priority in Ontario, say the organizers of a women’s action campaign. They want to see that change in Party platforms for the upcoming October election.
The Step It Up! Campaign is a coalition of provincial women’s advocacy networks, rape crisis centres, shelters and second stage housing programs, women’s centres, labour and community groups. The Campaign calls on all political Parties in Ontario to adopt 10 Steps to End Violence Against Women in their platforms for the October 10 election. “Women are disadvantaged in Ontario, as they are everywhere,” says Eileen Morrow of the Campaign. “They do most of the child care and housework with less money and little regulated child care supports, and mothers all over the province are experiencing violence that hurts them and their children, without adequate support from government.” Tomorrow the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives will release research to show that, in fact, Ontario families with children haven’t seen their economic situation alter in the last 30 years. The ones struggling most will be single mother-led families. And the poorest of these will be Aboriginal women, women with disabilities and immigrant women. The richest families will have 75 times the riches to support their families than these mothers. This Mother’s Day, the Campaign is urging women and men all over Ontario to send a message to Ontario political Parties asking them to say what they will do for Ontario mothers and their children. The Step it Up! Campaign website will host a Mother’s Day ‘card’ for the Party leaders that individuals and groups can send to honour their mothers, and all of the mothers in Ontario. “Political Parties have to start putting some concrete platforms together to support mothers. Flowers and cards can’t pay the rent and feed the kids,” says Erin Lee-Todd of the Ottawa Step it Up group. "We want every day to be Mother’s Day in Ontario.” In 2006, 27 women and 12 children were murdered in Ontario in situations where intimate male partners were either charged with the murder or committed suicide. Twenty children were left motherless. “Mother’s Day in North America was originally suggested as a day of peace and anti-war activism by women. Let’s bring back that idea now. Let’s fight against the war that women now have to survive in many homes and neighbourhoods in Ontario and give them the means they need to escape and end this war,” said Morrow. Step it Up! wants all Parties to understand and act on violence against women as an equality rights issue and to put in their Party Platforms the steps women need to go beyond managing the impacts, to ending violence against women. The Step it Up! Campaign is currently endorsed by 100 groups across the province. For more about the Step it Up! Campaign and a list of our endorsers, visit our website at: www.stepitupontario.ca Media contacts: Eileen Morrow, Toronto 416-977-6619
Erin Lee-Todd, Ottawa 613-234-8511 Attachments: · Mother’s Day Backgrounder · Mother’s Day ’07, or Be a Mothers’ Party —A Mother’s Day 'Card' for Parties Listen to our Mothers' Day PSA
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